Fifty shades of green

Right now the water meadows are looking at their greenest.  Although there are flowers blooming all over the high chalk downland, by the river it's a different story, with a slight pause before the later summer flowers get into full swing.  What had been a grey day became quite beautiful in late afternoon and the sun is still shining now, so I walked down to the nature reserve where I found these marestails (well, at least we called them marestails when I was small, but I think they're actually marsh horsetail, one of the Equisetaceae that lurk in the reedbeds).  What I liked here - apart from all that green - was the shadows on the reed spears.

Apart from that it's been a day of small jobs and enjoying the fact that in the garden the roses are at their peak.  For the first time the section of my very small garden that is designated 'the rose garden' actually does look like one.  How chuffing is that?

Happy Monday evening  xx